...is all that is to be a heard from British people presently. (the subject is the recent riots, of course). In answer to the question, everyone just trots out their favourite thing they disapprove of about how things aint what they used to be.
As I walk past this bar in the middle of Yokohama early on a Sunday morning I have often marvelled at the neatly arranged empty sake bottles, and wondered if the British police would even allow this kind of decoration - after all, to most British people, an empty bottle is a weapon, and anything left out on the street belongs to whoever can grab it first.
There are so many differences between British and Japanese culture, and only one of the two countries had riots last week. I could point to so many things, as I stare out of the window making things up... but I suppose that the British social scientists must be pretty happy, as now they'll hopefully get lots of research grants to work out the real reasons why(owhyowhy).
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Posted By jules to jules' pics at 8/16/2011 12:55:00 PM
12 comments:
Oddly enough I saw very little in support of the idea that the young and poor might be upset about Cameron's promise to squeeze their opportunities down to a nub. It's the price of austerity, I suppose.
Many years ago, the garage across the way from Chez Bunny had a boxing club up top. The fighters would come out after training and hydrate in their cars, which were all new and shiny and must have cost all the winnings from their last fight. Much nicer than what the locals had.
And, they would always neatly stack the bottles on the edge of the sidewalk. Must have been Japanese
99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer!
Can you still find beer or sake vending machines on some streets in Japan? I always thought that said a he'll of a lot about the difference between Japanese and Western societies.
I tend to argue a lot on a soft libertarian blog, as I find libertarians annoying. They think I am a nanny statist, but I have pointed out that I would be perfectly happy with things like Japan's remarkably relaxed town planning, (where commercial and residential even in new areas is entangled much much than West), but you also need to have a Japanese attitude to societal co-operation before you could expect it to work In the West at all.
I think there may be regional differences, I expect there are some public machines but rather more commonly (IME) they are in private spaces like onsen lobbies, hotels etc. There are also various attempts at age control (also for tobacco vending), not sure how successful this has been.
Can't say I'm a great fan of having restaurants set up right next to our house in a quiet residential area. Fortunately the location is so unsuitable that they have all been resounding failures.
Heck, I remember whiskey in street vending machines there in the mid-70s.
There's one beer vending machine down the street from me - but as James says, most tend to be in hotels.
Jules --- New pix, please.
For example, what are new wave young Japanese summer time duds (wraps, clothes)?
David:
No, you can't commission pix of scantily clad women!!!
;-)
Actually I've been playing with my film camera recently - its lighter weight is appealing in the sweaty summer. But I admit it is totally useless as a blogging tool!
My Nikon D90 is sticky and sandy after various adventures, the Sony TX5 very beaten up after Ishinomaki -I've been trying all sorts of devious strategies but just I can't bend James' iron will and convince him to let me buy more toys.
jules --- I am shocked, shocked to discover you might think I meant that!
Just street costumes would do; I'm tired of the 99 bottles of beer...
And have you yet to discover what beer does to iron?
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